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Context No. 1866 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 6:14-30: in context

14These are the heads of their fathers’ houses. The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; these are the families of Reuben. 15The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman; these are the families of Simeon. 16These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari; and the years of the life of Levi were one hundred thirty-seven years. 17The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, according to their families. 18The sons of Kohath: Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel; and the years of the life of Kohath were one hundred thirty-three years. 19The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their generations. 20Amram took Jochebed his father’s sister to himself as wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses. The years of the life of Amram were one hundred thirty-seven years. 21The sons of Izhar: Korah, and Nepheg, and Zichri. 22The sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri. 23Aaron took Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab, the sister of Nahshon, as his wife; and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. 24The sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph; these are the families of the Korahites. 25Eleazar Aaron’s son took one of the daughters of Putiel as his wife; and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites according to their families. 26These are that Aaron and Moses to whom the LORD said, “Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies.” 27These are those who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. These are that Moses and Aaron. 28On the day when the LORD spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, 29The LORD said to Moses, “I am the LORD. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I tell you.” 30Moses said before the LORD, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh listen to me?”

After a genealogy setting Moses and Aaron within the tribe of Levi, the passage returns to the commission. These are the Moses and Aaron, it says, to whom the LORD said, bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. And God says again to Moses, I am the LORD; tell Pharaoh all that I tell you. But Moses raises once more the objection he keeps returning to: I am of faltering lips; how then will Pharaoh listen to me? He is still convinced of his own inadequacy for the task.

Moses cannot get past his sense of unfitness. I am of faltering lips, he says again; I am no speaker; how will Pharaoh listen to me? It is a real limitation, and Moses keeps raising it, unable to believe that God could use someone so ill-equipped for the task of confronting Pharaoh. And notice how God responds. He does not agree with Moses' assessment and find someone better; nor does he flatter Moses by telling him he is more capable than he thinks. God's answer to Moses' excuse of inability is to reassert who he himself is: I am the LORD; tell Pharaoh all that I tell you. The sufficiency for the task lies not in Moses' abilities but in the God who sends him and gives him the words to speak. There is instruction here for our own sense of inadequacy before what God asks of us. We are prone to Moses' objection: I am not able, I am not gifted, I am not the right person, how could God use me for this? And often the limitation is real; Moses really was a poor speaker. But God's answer to our sense of inability is not usually to agree and pass us by, nor to convince us we are more capable than we are, but to point us to himself: I am the LORD; I will be sufficient; do what I send you to do, and I will give you what you need. The task does not depend on our adequacy but on the God who sends us. Our sufficiency, Paul says, is not from ourselves but from God. Moses' faltering lips were not the obstacle he thought; God would speak through them. When God calls us to something we feel unequal to, the excuse of our inability is not the final word; the final word is God's own I am the LORD, and the sufficiency he supplies. We are not sent in our own strength or on the strength of our own gifts, but by the God who says, tell them all that I tell you.

When God asks of me something I feel unequal to, do I keep raising, like Moses, the excuse of my own inability, as if my limitations were the final word, or can I hear God's answer, I am the LORD, and trust that the sufficiency for the task lies not in my abilities but in the God who sends me and supplies what I need?

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